The drug khat causes major threat to our society

December 14, 2004

For decades I have been agonizing the unprecedented profusion of the narcotic drug Qaad or Khat. It also carries a series of other names such as kat, miraa, kangetti as well as its Latin name Katha Edulis. To the Somalis, it is simply Qaad and a drug of choice.

It was an American ambassador in Mogadishu who told a Reuters correspondent that Qaad was Somalia's choice of drug and it could be as hazardous as cocaine or hash.

Yet, less than two decades ago, Qaad was not as readily available, or even known in the South as is the case currently, where even kids as young as 10 or 12 years old openly chew the drug as they engage each other in running battles in the streets of the smoking ruins of the capital.

Qaad is grown in Yemen, Ethiopia and Kenya's Meru district and is flown daily to Somalia by a fleet of light aircraft piloted by bush pilots who could outfox the notorious Australian bush pilots. It is chewed as stimulant and a source of a variety of symptoms, including insomnia, lack of appetite, impotence and transitory euphoria, and in some cases despair and paranoia. Addicts would do anything, including murder and home invasion to dig up money with which to buy the drug in order to mollify their cravings.

Khat is illegal in North America, but cities with sizeable Somali population, such as Minneapolis, Minnesota, it is sold and chewed behind closed doors. Recently the State police impounded a haul of Qaad with street value of millions of dollars. Barely a week later five young Somalis murdered a woman allegedly selling the drug at her home in Minneapolis.

According to a police spokesperson there are indications that this hitherto unknown drug in the United States have almost reached alarming proportion, especially among the youngsters, and it is no longer classified as "soft drug."
"Community leaders abdicated their responsibilities to warn the young people about the dangers of drugs," the police spokesperson bemoaned.

Closer to home, it is estimated eighty per cent of the youths countrywide are hooked to the drug. In 1990 Unicef, the children's organization, in its global drugs and substance abuse statistics forecast a frightening crisis, which it said poses a major threat to the well-being of young people in Somalia, dwarfing all efforts to import food and other basic necessities, following man-made and natural disasters.

Kenya earns more than 50 million dollars for exporting to Somalia the much preferred Kangetti variety and cigarettes alone, that's to a country where people are reeling from the scarcity of food, medicine and clean drinking water. Ironically, it is estimated that only 3 per-cent of the Kenyans themselves chew Qaad, mostly in Meru district where the plant is grown and at the Coast Province, where the majority of the inhabitants are of Arab descendants.

"We import death and disease from Kenya and export the last trace of our fauna and flora to the oil rich Arabs," a reporter from the French news agency (AFP) quoted a Somali doctor at the old Digfer General Hospital.

Heavily armed gangs, or "Mooryaan" as they are known control more than a dozen makeshift airstrips owned by powerful Mogadishu warlords in connivance with local merchants sometimes called Qaad and Cigarettes Barons. Some of these warlords and merchants are now key members of the new cabinet headed by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gheddi with the full blessing of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and the federal parliament-in-exile. The integrity of the other cabinet members is also in question. In short, some of them have very poor track records and do not deserve to hold a ministerial portfolio.
A scene from hell occurs when a new cargo of Qaad and Cigarettes arrive at the airstrips when impatient peddlers try to force their way past the hired Mooryaan. In this way many people died in the stampede. Others are treated at the already cash-strapped hospitals, and with not more than bandages. Eyewitnesses say gangs of freelancers, forcing many peddlers to surge ahead and try to reach the cargo, usually create the chaos.

In many instances the bush pilots hastily take off before the cargo was discharged to save their own lives, but the freelancers try to shoot down the aircraft in vain as most of the CESSNAS to Somalia are now bulletproofed.

Humanitarian agencies that tried to use the airstrips have been threatened with death unless they shell out disproportionate landing fees and hire private gunmen as bodyguards and four-wheel-drive Toyota pick ups, or else…

GRAVY TRAINS

"A quick tour at these airstrips will tell you why they proved to be a gravy train for the warlords," said Abdi Egeh, a Somali-Canadian who paid a short visit in Mogadishu after an absence of 15 years. He said the chief of the Mooryaan at the airstrip is a man of all trades and master of all. He is the immigration, customs, the treasurer and the police chief, all in one, and his word is final. "But the guy has very short fuse," Abdi said.

A former officer of the collapsed Somali National Army, he makes no secret of his belief that the country does not need a government with its red tape and colossal bureaucratic bottleneck. Like his masters, he believes that Somalia should remain the world's only privatized state, and makes certain the warlord's coffer is never empty.

"The US dollar, and in some cases the Euro and the Saudi Rial, is your passport, visa and custom's clearance certificate, period. No question is asked and nothing to declare virtually at all the airstrips scattered across the city. Apparently it is a country where anyone could come in and get out at will, " Abdi said.

Apart from the Qaad and cigarette importers, the arms traffickers are potential bonanza for the owners of the airstrips. Thousands of dollars change hands every day, which inspired wannabe warlords to launch their own airstrips around the city.

Due to lack of income generating sources, Qaad peddling has assumed a legal status even when there was a government in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, larger number of pushers, including young boys and women who lost their husbands in the civil war peddle and invaded every neighbourhood. In some instances, up to ten peddlers can be operating the same zone, Hodan, for example. Former policemen are known to double as private bodyguards and Qaad and cigarette peddlers. As a result there's Qaad glut in the city. It is a cutthroat business.

Trouncing all efforts to import food and other basic necessities following natural and man-made disasters, Qaad has emerged as the real vanquisher and I very much doubt if any government would be able to step in to curtail its proliferation in the foreseeable future. They will have more than enough to do for a hundred year; just putting together what the warlords has destroyed.

Who is to blame for this threat to our society? Mainly religious leaders, clan elders, civic society, health workers, intellectuals and the media for failing to step in time to curb the widespread of this poison in the country in the first place. I cannot for the life me understand why my colleagues in the local media (most of them are no neophytes) failed to blow the Qaad menace sky high. They deliberately let the people down by keeping silent. Evidently, this is another rush to Armageddon and that something must be done before it is too late.